Under the full moon, a circle of practitioners celebrates the Goddess. No need for monumental temples or austere renunciations: singing, dancing, laughing, loving are enough. In The Spiral Dance by Starhawk, a major figure in neo-pagan Wicca, we find this striking statement: "All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals." Originating from the Charge of the Goddess — a sacred text of Wicca originally written by Doreen Valiente — this phrase sanctifies every act of love and sensual joy as a divine offering. This article will explore the history and symbolic significance of this adage in paganism, its anthropological echo in ancient traditions, and the duality between spiritualities that exalt the body and those, particularly in Judeo-Christianity, that repress it. Finally, we will discuss how witchcraft and mystical arts participate in the reclamation of the sacred through the body.
Wiccan Origins: A Motto of Sacred Joy
The phrase "All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals" comes from the Charge of the Goddess, a fundamental text of Wicca written in the 1950s (adapted by Starhawk in 1979). The Goddess, the feminine principle of the divine, speaks to her followers: she invites them to gather "naked in [their] rites," to sing, feast, dance, and "make love in [her] presence," because Her ecstasy is spiritual and Her joy is embodied on Earth. My worship will be at the heart of rejoicing, for behold – all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals," she proclaims.
With these words, every expression of love, every sincere pleasure becomes a liturgical act. It is a radical reversal of puritanical mentalities: Wicca elevates the happiness of the senses as a path to communion with the divine. As Starhawk explains, in witchcraft, s.e.xuality is considered "a luminous and sacred life force" that can be freely expressed as long as love guides it. No act of affection or sincere pleasure is deemed profane or impure: making love, laughing, savoring the simple pleasures of life—all of this honors the Goddess.
"Any act inspired by love and pleasure is a ritual of the Goddess."
Pleasure, therefore, is not a superficial frivolity: it becomes "a profound expression of vital force, a power of connection that links us to others."
Historically, this sanctification of carnal love draws from the soil of ancient paganism. The founders of Wicca, such as Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente, drew inspiration from ancient myths and practices where fertility deities and sensual rites went hand in hand. The Charge of the Goddess resonates with ancient influences and reaffirms a sacred hedonistic vision of the world.
A vision where the divine expresses itself through nature and the human body, and where joy is a spiritual duty.
By proclaiming that love and pleasure are rituals, the Goddess reminds her followers that earthly life, in all its sensuality, is the very temple of spirituality. This jubilant motto contributed to making Wicca a religion that is resolutely positive toward the body, in stark contrast to centuries of dominant ascetic traditions.
Pleasure and Sensuality: Ancient Anthropological Perspectives
The idea of sanctified pleasure is not new: many ancient spiritual traditions integrated sensuality into their rituals and worldview. Long before the Christian era, pagan cults celebrated the fertility of the earth through festivals where the exuberance of the senses served as an offering to the gods.
For example, in ancient Mesopotamia, there were fertility rites that combined s.e.xuality and the sacred: according to historian Herodotus, some Babylonian societies practiced sacred s.e.xual rites in the temple of Ishtar (goddess of love). Every woman in Babylon, he said, had to symbolically unite with a stranger at the temple at least once in her life, thereby performing a ritual offering of her body to the goddess. For the ancients, s.e.xuality could be endowed with a powerful ritual dimension, aiming to attract the blessings of the goddess of fertility.
In the Greco-Roman world, this sanctification of bodily ecstasy is also found. The cults in Greece, and later in Rome, made joyful delirium and sensory excess a way to commune with the gods of wine and vitality. Frenetic dance, intoxicating music, drunkenness, and sometimes s.e.xual license characterized these mysterious festivals where the individual, transported by collective ecstasy, touched the divine through pleasure and self-transcendence.
In Asia, some spiritual paths elevated sensuality to the rank of mystical art. Tantrism, a current in Hinduism and Buddhism, is the emblematic example. Rather than denying desires, Tantra uses them: ritualized s.e.xual union is conceived as a means of attaining enlightenment, uniting the masculine and feminine polarities (Shiva and Shakti) within the practitioner. The tantric doctrine asserts that s.e.xual energy, awakened and controlled, can be transmuted into mystical ecstasy.
Whether in the Celtic spring festivals of Beltane, the ecstatic Sufi dances, or the shamanic trance rituals—the body was never absent from the spiritual. Physical pleasure, sensuality, were legitimate offerings to the divine powers, a vehicle for the experience of the sacred. These perspectives show that the sanctification of pleasure is part of a continuum where the body is an instrument of spiritual communion.
Sacralization of the Body vs. Sin of the Flesh: Two Worldviews
While many pagan and Eastern traditions have seen the body and pleasure as allies of the sacred, Judeo-Christian currents have often taken the opposite position, creating a true duality between spirit and flesh. On one side, the sacred hedonistic vision (paganism, tantrism, etc.) honors matter, celebrates carnal union, and views the pleasures of the senses as divine gifts. On the other, the dominant Judeo-Christian tradition advocates mastery over the body, suspecting pleasure as a trap leading to sin. This opposition has profoundly shaped Western morality.
In the dominant Judeo-Christian tradition, purity is associated with continence and the domination of the spirit over the instincts. The flesh becomes "weak," virginity an ideal of holiness, and lust—one of the seven deadly sins.
For centuries, the body was viewed as the enemy of the soul that must be tamed. The flesh was "weak," likely to cause a fall if one surrenders to it. This austere view also demonized the female body, perceived as an object of desire and thus potential sin (hence the ideal of the immaculate Virgin, opposed to the tempting Eve).
In contrast to this rigidity, pagan traditions were seen as lewd and demonic. Ancient fertility rites, dance, and celebration were assimilated to demonic rituals in the Christian imagination.
The witch hunts partially focused on women accused of carnal indecency with the Devil, signaling that any "free" use of pleasure was suspicious, while these women sanctified the body rather than repressing it.
Modern Wicca sought to rehabilitate what Christian Western civilization had relegated to the shadows: the sacred nature of the body and our senses.
Where patriarchal religion saw a threat, pagan spirituality speaks of a path. The view shifts from seeing pleasure as an obstacle to purity, to seeing the celebration of the body as an act of faith, a ritual as valid as a prayer or classical offering.
This duality of perspectives—the sacred body versus the sinful body—has deep implications for culture: one fosters an attitude of celebrating life, the other an attitude of control and sometimes shame.
Reclaiming the Sacred Through the Body: Mystical Arts and Re-enchantment
In the 20th and 21st centuries, there has been a true reappropriation of the body and pleasure as spiritual dimensions in some circles. Neo-paganism, modern witchcraft, and mystical arts play a key role in this movement of re-enchantment. Figures like Starhawk have encouraged individuals—especially women—to claim the sacredness of their needs and desires.
Mystical arts engage the senses to reach the sacred. Ritual becomes a total act engaging both body and soul. The body ceases to be a burden or obstacle: it becomes a channel, an instrument for feeling the "numinous" in the flesh.
By reconnecting magic and corporality, these practices contribute to a larger movement of rehabilitating the sensorial, participating in alternative currents that seek to re-enchant a world disenchanted by centuries of austere rationalism.
The body, once despised in favor of the spirit, is reinvested as the sanctuary of the sacred. Painting the body, adorning it with symbols, dancing under the moon, making love—all these contribute to reclaiming the sacred through emotion and sensation. It is a way of healing the split between soul and senses.
Ritual serves to unite two dimensions: giving meaning (signified) to our senses (sensations). Through the scent of a candle, the taste of wine, the touch of a hand, we inscribe the ephemeral sensation into a web of meaning that transcends it.
Conclusion
"All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals"—this phrase, loaded with history and symbolism, reminds us that the sense of the sacred can be found in an embrace just as much as in a prayer. It is up to us, modern disenchanted ones, to perhaps relearn this ancient truth: our senses know the path to the sacred, as long as love guides them.
Reconciling Eros and the sacred, body and spirit—this is undoubtedly the ambition at the heart of neo-pagan spirituality, of which Starhawk is the voice.
© NOIR KĀLA
Sources :
Starhawk, The Spiral Dance (1979)
D. Valiente, Charge of the Goddess (1957)
CNRTL, Étymologies de plaisir
Tradition orale Wicca (Z. Budapest)
Photographie : Bianca Des Jardins
